Category: Worship (Page 2 of 3)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbolism (8)

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Symbol Basics

Symbols are objects, actions, or persons that evoke meanings beyond their literal presence.  They are literal, but they more than literal as well.

Where a long explanation might satisfy the mind, poets use symbols because they can evoke complex ideas in the imagination without all the explanation, which would be inadequate anyway.  Sometimes a symbol carries a single meaning. but they can also signify many things.

There are conventional symbols–we all know that the red rose is a symbol of romantic love and that a wedding ring is a symbol of faithfulness and unity.  But sometimes symbols are contextual.  The One Ring is a complex symbol found in the context of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

The Bible is full of symbols.  Joseph’s coat was a literal coat, but it was much more than that–it symbolized his father’s preferment.  The Hebrews regularly piled stones up to commemorate significant events, like the crossing of the Jordan River.  Elisha wanted Elijah’s cloak, not because he was cold, but because of what it symbolized.

One of the most significant symbols in Christianity is the bread and the wine of Communion.

“Behold The Lamb”

“Behold the Lamb” by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, and Stuart Townend makes more use of symbolism than do many other Communion songs.   Here is one verse of this song:

Verse 2
The body of our Saviour Jesus Christ
Torn for you eat and remember
The wounds that heal the death that brings us life
Paid the price to make us one
So we share in this Bread of Life
And we drink of His sacrifice
As a sign of our bonds of love
Around the table of the King

The bread in communion is symbolic.  It is literal bread (or wafers, or crackers, or gluten-free Rice Chex), but it is more.  Symbolically it is the body of Jesus that was, in the words of the song, “torn.”  The literal “wounds” and actual “death,” symbolically “heal” and “bring us life” respectively.  The sharing of bread and wine is a symbolic reflection of  “the bonds of love” that unite us in Christ’s “sacrifice.”

Compressed into Symbol

The cool thing about symbols is that meaning is compressed into them and then it expands out from them.

All kinds of meanings are crammed into the object, action, or person.  Into the communion symbols, all the meanings of Christ’s Crucifixion are compressed into the bread and wine.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Symbols are packed so full, they explode by way of the worshipers’ experience. Singing symbols can lead us into powerful and transforming worship experiences. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship” quote=”Symbols are packed so full. they explode by way of the worshipers’ experience. Singing symbols can lead us into powerful and transforming worship experiences.”]

Jesus begins the process when he says, “This is my body,” and, “This is my blood.”   He speaks of his body being “broken” and his blood “poured out.”  The events that follow these statements, called The Passion of Christ, make symbolic meaning of bread and wine.  This is a partial list of all that is compressed into the Communion elements:

  • Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
  • Judas’ betrayal
  • The scourging and crown of thorns
  • The struggle toward Golgotha
  • The nails in his hands and feet
  • The mockery of the onlookers
  • The words he spoke from the cross
  • The spear in his side

The literal objects of bread and wine contain all this and more.  And then all this compacted meaning expands.

Expanded by Experience

The communion symbols are packed with meaning, and, simultaneously, they are expanded by the personal experience that every worshiper brings to the Lord’s table.

  • We know that, had we been there, we might have been numbered among those who shouted, “Crucify Him!” (Luke 23:21).
  • We know that, by word or deed or omission of word or deed, we have said, “I don’t know the man!” (Matthew 26:72).
  • We know the place from which Jesus cried, “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew 27:46).
  • We have prayed, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom'” (Luke: 23:42).
  • We desperately want to hear the words, “You will be with me in paradise” (Luke:23:43).

The action of compression and expansion that comes with symbols can be a very powerful experience.

Singing Symbols

This compression and expansion occur whenever we sing symbols.

When we sing symbols, it’s obviously not just our emotions that are engaged, nor even our minds–our imaginations enter into the act of worship.

We don’t sing symbols very often.  So I don’t have another, non-Communion example of effective use of symbol in a praise and worship song, So I’ll provide another example of the use of symbol, let us turn to one stanza from Bob Dylan’s “Hard Rain.”

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

The speaker’s son is “blue-eyed” which symbolically suggests innocence.

In line 5, the son has “Heard one person starve” but “many people laughing.”  What or whom is compressed into the symbolic “one person” who starved?  Into the symbolic “many people laughin'”?  How is this symbol is expanded into your experience?

In line 6 we find “a poet,” often a symbol of someone with the ability to see what others cannot.  He is dead.

Think about that clown in line 7.  What does the clown represent?  What is significant about his being alone.  In an alley.  Crying?

This rain is not hard just in the literal sense.

Compression and expansion.

With almost a symbol per line, no one can hear this song the same way each time they listen to it.

I’m not suggesting this density of symbolism in all of our praise and worship songs, but you can see how even one can add powerfully to a song.  Symbolism is a powerful, and underutilized tool in popular, contemporary praise and worship music.

It is my hope that some future songwriters would take on the challenge and add symbolism to their writing toolbox.

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and  Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Music has sound, but so do lyrics.

Yes, even without music, the words themselves have sound.

And the sound of the words can carry meaning.

Onomatopoeia

One way that words have sound is called onomatopoeia.  This, as you probably remember, is when the word sounds like what it means.  Words like crash, crackle, and smack are examples of onomatopoeia.

But onomatopoeia can be way cooler.  Here’s a line from John Keat’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

In this case, the sounds of the whole line echo what is being described.  Read it out loud a few times.  Do you hear the hum and buzz of the bugs on the quiet evening air?  The sounds and the combination of sounds make the sound of those kinds of evenings.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Music has sound, but so do lyrics. Yes, even without music, words have sound. And the sound of the words can carry meaning. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worshipsongwriter” quote=”Music has sound, but so do lyrics. Yes, even without music, words have sound. And the sound of the words can carry meaning.”]

But this is only the beginning–the sounds of words and lines of verse can be even more suggestive.

Phonetic Intensives

Phonetic intensives are onomatopoeia on steroids.

Here are examples of what Arp and Johnson call phonetic intensives (excerpted from Perrine’s Sound and Sense, Eighth Ed.)

  • the sound fl often suggests moving light, as in “flame,” “flare,” “flash,” “flicker”
  • gl often suggests unmoving light: “glare,” “glow,” “gleam,” “glisten”
  • sl is often associated with wetness: “slippery,” “slick,” “slide,” “slime,” “slushy”
  • st often suggests strength: “staunch,” stalwart,” “sturdy,” “stable,” “stern,”
  • short i often indicates smallness: “inch,” “imp,” “thin,” “little,” “bit,” “kid,”
  • the tt in the middle of a word often suggests sudden movement, as in “spatter,” “scatter,” “shatter,” “rattle,” “clatter,” “batter”

This list is just the beginning of the incredible sound resources that are available to the poet to add meaning through the sound of words.  You don’t have to memorize this list in order to write poetry.  For one thing, the list is incomplete.  The other reason is that you already know it.  We all do.  This isn’t stuff that a bunch of poetry nerds invented.  They discovered it–it’s in our language.  We just don’t think about it.  Poets think about it.  Good songwriters are poets.  Good songwriters will consider how their lyrics sound.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”We all know that sounds have meaning; we just don’t think about it.  Poets think about it.  Good songwriters are poets.  Good songwriters think about how their lyrics sound. #praiseandworship #worshipsongwriter #worshipleader” quote=”We all know that sounds have meaning; we just don’t think about it.  Poets think about it.  Good songwriters are poets.  Good songwriters think about how their lyrics sound.”]

If you want to communicate a peaceful beauty, don’t use too many r or k or t sounds because these sounds are not peaceful or beautiful.  If you want the worshipers to feel happy don’t use words with long vowels like “slow,” “deep,” “moon.”  These sounds create a whole different mood.

Read the lines of your songs out loud and listen to them.  Use your ears and feel them coming off of your lips–are the sounds of the words in combination consistent with what you are trying to communicate?  They don’t have to directly line up all of the time, buy the sounds certainly shouldn’t work contrary to your purposes.

Rhyme

I remember thinking it was funny that “love” was rhymed with “prove” in Joy to the World.  I used to sing, “And wonders of his lūve” to make my brother laugh.  He always did.

John Stackhouse wrote a blog post some time ago in which he criticized Chris Tomlin’s lyrics, including his use of rhyme, or lack thereof.

The man either doesn’t care about rhyming and settles for the merest assonance, or he lacks the skill or patience to actually craft rhymes.

Perhaps it is true that Tomlin’s rhymes are not as thoughtful as they should be, but the fact that they don’t rhyme perfectly is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.

Perfect rhymes, that is, rhymes that repeat the final vowel and consonant sound exactly, can suggest things like innocence, stability, simplicity, certainty,  and order.  Imperfect rhymes, also called slant rhymes, can suggest the opposite.  If you are writing a song of confession, slant rhymes might be just what you want.  What song are you writing?  How can you use rhyme to reinforce the meaning?

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Songs that rhyme suggests an order is reflective of the Christian worldview–indeed, one of the reasons we are worshiping in the first place. That despite seeming chaos, God is in control. #praiseandworship #worshipsongwriter #worshipleader” quote=”Songs that rhyme suggests an order is reflective of the Christian worldview–indeed, one of the reasons we are worshiping in the first place. That despite seeming chaos, God is in control.”]

I like rhymes, not just because I am a Classicist, but because of what they suggest about the world.  Songs that rhyme suggests a pattern of order and control–a stability and predictability.  This order can be reflective of the Christian view of reality–indeed, one of the reasons we are worshiping in the first place.  We are acknowledging and finding comfort in God’s Providence.  The order suggested by rhymes, despite the seeming chaos that surrounds us, suggest that God is in control.

Common Rhyming Problems

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Don’t use these rhymes in your worship songs: love/above, jewel/fool, feet/seas, out/out, name/fame, up/cup #praiseandworship #worshipsongwriter #worshipleader'” quote=”Don’t use these rhymes in your worship songs: love/above, jewel/fool, feet/seas, out/out, name/fame, up/cup”]

There is such a thing as a bad rhyme.  And there are other rhymes require caution in their use.  Here’s my partial list:

  1. feet/seas: the “close enough” rhyme — the fancy word for this sort of thing is “assonant rhyme.”  Assonance is the term that describes a repetition of vowel sounds.  A true rhyme is created by both the vowel and consonant sounds.   Stackhouse thinks assonant rhymes indicate a lack of skill or patience.  Perhaps he’s right, but on rare occasions, I think there is a place for them.  But never because of a lack of skill or patience.
  2. out/out: the same-word rhyme — there can be a good reason for rhyming a word to itself.  Repetition is used for emphasis, so the word you rhyme with itself must be a pivotal word, poetically speaking.  If it is not a word of significance, then take this opportunity to create a powerful effective rhyme.
  3. love/above: the cliché rhyme — the love/above rhyme is a cliché.  This pair has appeared in hymns for centuries.  Cliché is never OK.  Never use a cliché rhyme.  (oh, and never use a cliché)
  4. name/fame: the bad-diction rhyme —  don’t sacrifice diction for rhyme.  Don’t sacrifice rhyme for diction either.  The point is, don’t sacrifice.  I always wince in that song that uses the name/fame rhyme.  Yes, God is interested in his glory, in being known in all lands, but this is not the same as seeking fame.  That’s what people on American Idol do.
  5. jewel/fool: the forced rhyme — the bad diction rhyme is when you use an inferior word, just because it rhymes with a good one.  A forced rhyme is when you bring in two inferior words just because they rhyme.
  6. up/cup: the “Oh, Come On” rhyme — this means you’re not even trying.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Types of rhymes to avoid in the worship song you are writing: the *close enough* rhyme, the same-word rhyme, the cliché rhyme, the bad-diction rhyme, the forced rhyme, the *Oh, Come On* rhyme #praiseandworship #worshipsongwriter #worshipleader’ ” quote=”Types of rhymes to avoid in the worship song you are writing: the *close enough* rhyme, the same-word rhyme, the cliché rhyme, the bad-diction rhyme, the forced rhyme, the *Oh, Come On* rhyme “]

Rhythm

All songwriters know about rhythm.  I think rhythm is a requirement for corporate worship–some rhythmic consistency contributes to the “singability” of a song.

Rhythm can be restrictive, but real poets seem to be able to use the perfect word in the perfect place, without sacrificing meaning or rhythm.

Sometimes we find metrical variations in poems.  In the best poetry, these variations are purposeful.  In an inferior poem or song, the metrical variation is a result of the “close enough” mentality.

“Nature’s First Green is Gold”

To illustrate the function and power of sound and rhyme, I offer Robert Frost’s “Nature’s First Green is Gold.”

Nature’s first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay.

Again, there is so much that we could talk about in this poem.  The first line alone includes personification, metaphor, and paradox, and does so in such a simple and subtle way, that all this poetic activity doesn’t interfere with the simple sense of the line.  I will offer a short analysis focusing only on the sound, rhyme, and rhythm of this poem.

There is alliteration in the first line: “green is gold.”  The alliteration is not simply for the sake of alliterating; these words carry the central purpose of the poem.

Line 2, alliterates the h sound.  This is the lightest, most ethereal sound in our phonetic collection, and it’s describing the ethereal beauty of nature’s first green.  Contrast this line with line 7; where the d sound is alliterated.  This sound is the heaviest, most terrestrial of sounds.  See how the sounds echo the sense of these lines?

The whole poem is filled with long vowels.  Read line 4 out loud.  The sounds are of the same sad regret that the words convey.

The rhythm is regular, except for in the first and last lines.  The metrical variation  emphasizes “Nature’s first green” and “Nothing.”  These words frame the poem and carry the movement from elusive beauty to its loss.

Poets utilize every possible resource to communicate an experience to their readers.  What is their motivation?  Surely none have a purpose more important than the poets who write lyrics that will be used in the praise and worship of the King of the Universe.

Some thought, then, might be given to the sound of the lyrics even before the music is added, some thought to the rhymes and rhythms and what they communicate above and beneath the meaning of the words.

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and  Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

We sing to, and of, a transcendent God.  We cannot fully understand who he is or what he does.  And that makes it hard to understand our relationship with him.   It’s all an enigma wrapped in, well, you know . . .  God and his ways are way beyond literal language to even begin to explain anything about these.  So how in the world are we supposed to write songs about it all?

The same way that the biblical authors help communicate the mysteries of the God we worship. They use poetry.  It’s what you need to use when you are trying to say something that cannot be said. And a key tool that poets use in their songs is  metaphor. This is because metaphors are the best tools for dealing with complexity and mystery.

In Isaiah 64:6 God is the potter and we are the clay.  God is compared to a hen in Psalm 91:4.  And in Isaiah 42:14, to a woman in childbirth.

Even Jesus Christ, wholly God, used metaphors to explain who he was.

“I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35).

“I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11).

“I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5).

“I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12).

Most of life is mysterious and complex.  A lot of things cannot be expressed or understood directly or simply.  In order to express what is inexpressible, and explore the unknowable, we make comparisons to something else.

But metaphors do more than help us explain and understand things.  In the hands of a skilled poet, they activate our imaginations.

Understanding Metaphor

Before we get into some examples, we need to get some of the technical explanations out of the way.  This is very important, for if you don’t make the comparisons correctly, they will be ludicrous, not magical.

A metaphor has two parts: the thing you are describing (A) and the thing you are comparing it to (B).  In the metaphor, “The wind howled,” the wind (A) is compared to a wolf (B).  Note that you can name or imply either part of the comparison.  In this case, A is named and B is implied.

Just a few other related terms, that you probably remember from high school.  A simile is a comparison, but it is indirect, usually using the words “like” or “as”: “The wind sounded like the howling of a wolf.”  Personification is a type of metaphor when B is a person–“The wind whispered through the leaves.”  The term metaphor can be used to refer to the general category that includes the metaphor proper, as well as simile and personification.

Importantly, the B part of the comparison is very important–if you say the wind howled, you are communicating a feeling that there is something sinister about it.  If the wind is whispering, it’s a lot less lonely.

Mixed Metaphors

When you write a song, you want to be careful with metaphors.  You don’t want to accidentally write (or select) a song for worship with a mixed metaphor.  These are embarassing, because there are still people out there who know one when they see one.  So what is a mixed metaphor?

First, here are two wonderful metaphors that Jesus uses for himself:

“I am the good shepherd, . . . and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

“I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never grow hungry.”

These are both legit metaphors, but if we mix them we have

I am the bread of life, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

The comparison is nonsensical.  Bread doesn’t lay down its life for anything, let alone sheep.

Unlike a metaphor, this silly comparison does not lead to deeper reflections on who Jesus is, it just leaves us puzzled, or shaking our heads.

I’ve only sung Needtobreath’s “Multiplied” one time, and it was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  I remember it because of the problems with metaphor.

Your love is like radiant diamonds
Bursting inside us we cannot contain
Your love will surely come find us
Like blazing wild fires singing Your name

In this verse, we have God’s love (A) being compared to “diamonds bursting inside us” (B).  It makes sense to compare God’s love with something as beautiful, multifaceted and long-lasting as a diamond.  It also makes sense to compare the feeling of being loved by God as a “bursting” sensation.  But it doesn’t make sense to compare anything to a bursting diamond, because that’s not what diamonds do.  In the last line has a similar problem: “blazing wildfires” don’t sing.  Both of these are mixed metaphors.

Chris Tomlin’s “Amazing Grace: My Chains Are Gone” also suffers from a problem with a mixed metaphor.

The chorus that Tomlin added to the most beloved of hymns climaxes on a mixed metaphor.

My chains are gone
I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, amazing grace

“Like a flood, his mercy reigns” is a mixed metaphor.   It is saying that God’s mercy is like a reigning flood.  But floods don’t reign.  This is like saying, “Like a flood, his mercy shines.”  Or soars, or melts, or skates.

Floods flow.  They overwhelm.  They cover and destroy.  They glut, stream, spate, and surge.  For various reasons, none of these work very well as a replacement for reign–but, hey, it’s very is hard to write good poetry, but if we are going to write poetry to be used for the glory of God, it ought to be good.  And mixed metaphors are not good.  They are bad.

The Magic of Metaphor

When metaphors are done correctly, they can be magic.  Let’s start by looking at a poem written by a pro.  Here is Robert Frost’s “Bereft”:

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch’s sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.

As with all great poetry, there is so much more going on here than metaphor, but the metaphors are wonderful.

In line two, the sound of the ocean turns into a roar, which suggests a lion, and in line 11 the tone is “sinister.”  In line four, the door is “restive,” meaning it’s unable to keep still–like a person, so this is personification.  There is more personification in the “sombre” clouds.  All these metaphors combine to suggest turmoil within the speaker and a sense of some sort of danger.  The threat increases as the leaves are metaphorically compared to a snake in lines 9-10.

When the stormy conditions are described metaphorically, we can imaginatively understand the complex feeling the speaker is experiencing–it is a particular kind of loneliness–loneliness mixed with existential fear.  Even if we’ve never before experienced this feeling ourselves, we know just a little about what it feels like because we’ve read the poem.  Frost has described an indescribable feeling to us through metaphor.   That’s the power of metaphor.  Can you imagine how much more profound our singing-worship would be if we used metaphor in this way?

A Metaphor that Works: “My Lighthouse”

I’ve written previously about the wonderful metaphors used by Katheryn Scott in  “At the Foot of the Cross.”  Scott’s metaphors are great examples of how to effectively use standard comparisons that lead to deeper worship.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Metaphors in our worship songs can help us express what is inexpressible, and explore the unknowable, but they can also activate our imaginations. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship” quote=”Metaphors in our worship songs can help us express what is inexpressible, and explore the unknowable, but they can also activate our imaginations.”]

“My Lighthouse” from Rend Collective Experiment employs an extended metaphor, a comparison that is extended through the whole song.

 

Verse 1
In my wrestling and in my doubts
In my failures You won’t walk out
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea, whoa
You are the peace in my troubled sea
Verse 2
In the silence You won’t let go
In the questions Your truth will hold
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea, whoa
You are the peace in my troubled sea
Chorus
My lighthouse, my lighthouse
shining in the darkness I will follow You whoa
My lighthouse, my lighthouse
I will trust the promise You will carry me safe to shore
Tag
Safe to shore, safe to shore, safe to shore
Verse 3
I won’t fear what tomorrow brings
with each morning I’ll rise and sing
My God’s love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea, whoa
You are the peace in my troubled sea
Oh You are my light
Bridge
Fire before us, You’re the brightest
You will lead us through the storm

Sometimes our life is like a “troubled sea.”   Notice that the troubles aren’t general and abstract; they are of a particular kind of trouble.  They are not in the categories of lost car keys or bankruptcy or divorce.  What stirs up these waves is a lack of trust.  The forces behind these turbulent waters are wrestling, doubts, questions, failures, and God’s silence–a lack of trust in God.  The metaphor invites us to look beyond our troubles to hat which we can trust to take us through them–to the lighthouse.

Lighthouses have two functions: to warn ships of danger and to guide them to safe harbour.  Remembering God’s promises will shift our focus from the dangers of doubt; the lighthouse will guide us “safe to shore.”  Christ and his promises are a guiding light when we are on the dark and stormy seas, when we struggle with trusting God.

The metaphor doesn’t simply tell us that we can trust in God in our troubles, it places us on a boat, caught in a storm off of the coast (of Ireland I imagine) and it shows us a lighthouse through driving wind and rain.  We can trust the lighthouse to guide us.  And then, as we sing, we discover we will be all right, not by our own strength, but by looking to him.

That is the magic of metaphor.

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and  Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

I recently came across a song written by some aspiring songwriters. I think they’ve been at this for a while now because it had more than a few things going for it. The music was particularly good. I’d be happy to sing this tune, and I suspected that I’d catch myself humming it during the week.

The lyrics had no noticeable problems.

What was going on?  The words worked, the music worked.  Then I realized what the problem was.  There wasn’t much there for my mind or my imagination.  Only my vocal cords were engaged.  The song contained nothing but abstract phrases about Jesus constant.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Are our praise and worship sets too abstract? #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worshipsongwriter #worshipsong” quote=”Are our praise and worship sets too abstract? “]

The lyrics of a lot of our praise and worship songs are abstract.  They are about grace or freedom or God’s sovereignty or sin or victory and you get the picture.  These are really, really good things to sing about, but we need to think about them more concretely.

Let me be clear.  There is nothing inherently wrong with songs about abstract ideas.  Psalm 145, a psalm of praise, is mostly abstract.  If David can write a song like this, so can you.  But a steady diet of this type of song is a problem–and we sing a lot of them.

At least some, if not most, of our songs need to be concrete.  In Psalm 98 we find harps and trumpets, the sounds of singing, ram’s horns, and geographic features: the sea, rivers, and mountains.  In Psalm 103, we have “diseases,” “the pit,” “eagles,” “the east,” “the west,” “father,” “children,” “dust,” “grass,” “flowers,” “wind,” “children’s children,” “angels” and “servants.”

We interact with the world of concrete things with our bodies.  Our songs, too, will engage ideas through our imaginative connections with our bodies.

Imagery

The definition of imagery that you usually find with a quick Google search is: “When the poem evokes one of the five senses.”   This is a good definition, but it is limited because it doesn’t take into account the evocation of other physical experiences, such as nausea, nervousness, or a charley horse.

The word imagery is linked to imagination.   When Frost writes, “The woods are lovely dark and deep,” we do not see the woods with our physical eyes, we see them with the eyes of our imagination.  We have a whole body in our imagination that can experience all sorts of physical sensations.  This is imagery.

Imagery is a common literary device.  It’s so common because writers have long realized that we experience the world, first, through our bodies.

Poets use imagery to create vivid and realistic experiences in our imagination.   To illustrate, this is Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

There is so much to say about this poem, but we will look at just a few lines.  In the last line of the first stanza we watch, though the eyes of the speaker, the “woods fill up with snow.”  This short phrase communicates, without explicitly saying it, exactly the type of snowfall we are imaginatively experiencing.  For the woods to “fill up,” the snow is falling straight down and it’s heavy–you know, those big fluffy flakes that fall slowly when there is no wind. All this meaning is packed into a few short words–meaning is beyond the words, so to speak because it’s all happening in our imagination.

To contrast the peaceful picture before us, the sound of the harness bells come from the impatient horse who doesn’t have any conception of a beauty that would stop a journey home to hay and oats.  The three “k” sounds in, “He gives his harness bells a shake/To ask if there is some mistake,” reinforce, though sound, the contrast of the jarring bells with the soft muffled sounds of the snowy surroundings; “The only other sound’s the sweep/Of easy wind and downy flake.”  Our imaginations are guided by the poet to a very specific, concrete experience.

Dark and deep woods might feel creepy, but for the word “lovely.”  With this word, the image that is evoked is one of beautiful peacefulness.  Taken together, readers imaginatively experience this very particular, beautiful and peaceful setting.

We have physical bodies and we are surrounded by physical things.  It makes sense that our poetry would use imagery in order to communicate experience.  Are there physical experiences that writers of praise music might wish to evoke in order to lead us into worship?

Imagery gives us concrete experience.  Our understanding of abstract ideas comes to us through physical things as well.   A good example comes from the chorus of “Great Are You Lord.”

[click_to_tweet tweet=”We are both spiritual and physical. So our worship songs will be both as well. Abstract ideas of salvation will be accessed through the concrete images of lungs, bones, mountains, flowers, harps, trumpets, etc. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship” quote=”We interact with the world, both spiritually and physically.  So, our worship songs will engage our heart, mind, soul, and body. Abstract ideas of salvation will be accessed through the concrete images of lungs and bones, mountains and flowers, harps and trumpets, etc. “]

The Concrete Chorus of “Great Are You Lord”

One of the reasons I like “Great Are You Lord” by All Sons & Daughters is because it is so concrete–embodied even.  Most of the verses are fairly abstract, praising God for giving life and being love, and bringing light to the darkness.  But the chorus and the bridge bring our physical bodies into the song.

Chorus:
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise
We pour out our praise
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to You only
Bridge:
And all the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing
Great are You, Lord

While we sing the song, we confess that the air in our lungs, the one we just inhaled a moment before, is a gift from Him.  And we use that very air to praise him.  I think that’s amazing.  If you think about it for a second, we owe him our very breath.  And what else can we do in response to this realization but use that gift in worship?   This little line is incredible. In the very act of singing, we are doing what we are singing about.  And it’s so biological.

Isn’t this breath-to-praise pattern part of our everyday worship?  Any and every gift from God can be just as seamlessly turned into praise of the giver.  This is what holistic worship is.  We worship God with our all the gifts he’s given us.  Everything from the most basic breath, to our time, money, talents and passions, are turned into praise in the same seamless beauty in which we breathe and sing.

Wow!  When this dawns on you, it changes the way you sing the song.  It’s an idea that moves from the body, through the imagination to the mind and it evokes the emotion of gratitude and the desire to worship.  That’s what I’m talking about–holistic worship.  That’s what I am advocating for all songs that we sing in church.

The bridge is just as biological, and just as spiritually profound.  It states that “All the earth will sing your praise.”  The earth is that physical reality in which we live and it praises God in all its physicality.  What would be more natural than the crown of creation joining the terrestrial chorus in praise of our creator?  But it’s not our voices this time, nor our feelings or thoughts.  It’s not even our souls or spirits.  In league with the rest of the material world, our very bones–the core of our physical being, will sing praise.  This is profound in every sense of the term.

Again, the repeated singing of these lines brings you deeper into worship as the profundity of this idea sinks into our understanding.

Our whole life is about interaction with the world, both spiritually and physically.  To worship with our whole heart, mind, soul, and body would naturally involve songs about abstract ideas of salvation, accessed through the concrete images of lungs and bones, the cross, bread and wine, mountains and flowers, harps and trumpets, rain snow, and . . . a horse and bridle?

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and  Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and Focus (4)

Photo by Rachel Lynette French on Unsplash

Purpose

A praise and worship song must have a purpose.  This seems obvious.   Of course, they all have one general purpose: to bring a group of people into the praise and worship of the triune God.  For a song to effectively achieve this general purpose, it needs to have a narrower one as well.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”An excellent praise and worship song will hold together; it will be unified around a purpose–a very specific purpose.. #worshipleader #praiseandworship #worshipsong #praisesong #worshipsongwriting” quote=”An excellent praise and worship song will hold together; it will be unified around a purpose–a very specific purpose.”]

An excellent song will hold together; it will be unified around a central purpose.

All our songs are generally about God and the Gospel as it intersects the Christian life.  If you are writing a song that praises God, narrow it to praise just one of the persons of the Trinity.  But you can be still more specific.  If you are writing about God the Father,  narrow it to one which praises God as a father, or for his Creation, or for his strength to overcome what opposes us, or his grace to save us, or his providence, or his love, or any number of specific things for which we could praise him. Of course, this narrowing of purpose might mean your song won’t be sung as often, but it will be sung longer because it will lead to more meaningful worship.

Once you’ve settled on a narrow purpose, everything in the song will serve it.  Music and instrumentation will serve the purpose and most songwriters have a good handle on this because they are musicians.  But every aspect of the lyrics will serve this purpose as well.  We’ve already discussed diction here and here; diction serves the central purpose.  But there’s more.   Rhyme, sound, imagery, figures of speech,  rhythm, and meter, and everything else that constitutes the song, will contribute to this central purpose, or at least not detract from it.

Why a narrow focus?

After we sing a song a few times and get past the worshipful feelings it generates, the words of an excellent song will take us more deeply into worship.   It will do so because it will guide our thoughts and imaginations to specific ideas and images upon which to meditate.

If I ask you to think about water, your mind can go in a thousand different directions.  You might think about the ocean, or a glass of ice water, or the rain running down the road, or about that time the dishwasher hose burst.  These are all interesting, but because they are undirected, your thoughts flit from one to the other and never settle anywhere.

Now imagine a small stream in a misty forest, flowing through, and over, and around grey rocks and pebbles.  Some are covered with dewy moss and strewn with yellow and red leaves.  With this specific manifestation of water, I have a directed an imaginative experience.  Hopefully, you saw the beauty, a particular kind of beauty, for this was my purpose.  Particular kinds of water can evoke ideas of peace, or awe, or fear, or cold, or discomfort, or cleansing, or sadness, or any of a hundred other ideas and images to experience.

Singing in church certainly will involve emotions, but worship should be about more than feelings.  A specific focus directs engages minds and imaginations more effectively than do generalities.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Singing in church certainly will involve emotions, but worship should be about more than feelings. A specific focus directs engages minds and imaginations more effectively than do generalities. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship'” quote=”Singing in church certainly will involve emotions, but worship should be about more than feelings. A specific focus directs engages minds and imaginations more effectively than do generalities. “]

Is “Holy Spirit” too General?

“Holy Spirit” by Francesca Battistelli brings praise to the third person of the Trinity.  Musically, it will serve well to bring congregants into the worship of God, but I wonder if it is too unfocused to result in the deeper worship we’ve been talking about.  You can decide for yourself and leave a comment.  

Verse 1
There’s nothing worth more, that could ever come close
No thing can compare, You’re our living hope
Your presence Lord
Verse 2
I’ve tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves
Where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone
Your presence Lord
Chorus
Holy Spirit You are welcome here
Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere
Your glory God is what our hearts long for
To be overcome by Your presence Lord
Your presence Lord
Bridge
Let us become more aware of Your presence
Let us experience the glory of Your goodness

While singing this song we praise the Spirit for his worth and glory and goodness.  We also sing about the longing we feel and the hope he gives.  We also celebrate the freedom from shame and our own loving feelings toward him.  We also confess he is the presence of God, both within and outside of me.  And, lastly, we offer a prayer for awareness of his presence.

There is a lot going on in this song, so much so that my thoughts don’t settle on one idea because they are rapidly rushed off to the next one, and then the next.

We can sing about all of these things, but we might need four or five songs to do it in such a way that brings people into more holistic worship–one where the mind and imagination have a particular idea, story, feeling, object on which to meditate or experience.

To review last week’s lesson: this song also has one word that doesn’t quite work.  Did you see it?

“Blessed Be Your Name”

A song that illustrates the benefits of a more focused purpose is “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord” by Matt Redman:

Verse 1
Blessed be Your Name in the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flows
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your Name when I’m
Found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name
Pre-Chorus
Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say
Chorus
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
Verse 2
Blessed be Your name when the
Sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s all as it should be
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering
Though theres pain in the offering, blessed be Your name
Bridge
You give and take away, You give and take a -way
My heart will chose to say, Lord blessed be Your name

This entire song is unified around a single idea found in Job 1:21: God is worthy of our praise in both the good times and the bad times.  The bridge proclaims the first part of the verse: “You give and take away.”  The title and refrain carry the central idea–“Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  The rest of this song does nothing but imaginatively expand on this theme.

The first verse is about praising God for the good times and the bad times.  The second verse repeats this pattern.  The pre-chorus gives two lines to blessing God in the good times and two lines to doing the same in the bad.

There is not a line or a word in this song that doesn’t clearly serve the specific purpose.

I have sung this song in times when it felt as if I was alone in the wilderness and other times in bountiful circumstances.  It’s like it’s a different song.  Its claim is that both the good and the bad times are blessings for which we praise God.  Meditating on the nearly spontaneous movement from receiving to praising has brought me into deep worship.  The act of singing itself becomes a testimony to the song’s truth.

I believe that the simple unity and specific focus of this song is one of the main reasons this song has been sung so often, and for so long in Christian gatherings.

My thesis in this series on The Poetry of Worship is that most of the songs we regularly sing in church are good songs.  But with repeated singing, a great song will bring us into deeper worship.  A specific focus can direct the hearts and minds of those who sing the song to a particular aspect of the nature and character of God, or of the Christian life.  This leads, of course, to an edification that lasts far longer than the Sunday service.  Perhaps a week.  Perhaps a lifetime.
Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

I have had the privilege to act as a consultant for aspiring praise and worship songwriters.  It was a great experience.  I was inspired by the creativity and passion that the writers brought to these songs, and I was happy that I could help to make these already good songs even better.

When giving “cool feedback,” I found that one of the hardest things for me to communicate was why a particular word made the writing sound awkward and amateurish.

I read a lot of artless writing.

I do it professionally.  The amateur writer doesn’t know that the monosyllabic and ordinary word, “shows,” is sometimes the best word, as in this quote from the last lines of Hamlet:

                                                   such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

In this case, as in almost every case, “shows” is always better than “exhibits,” often better than “displays,” and usually better than “reveals.”  When I encounter the word “discloses,” I know that someone has been abusing their thesaurus.   It all depends, of course, upon the poem, and the line within the poem, but these words, usually, don’t quite make it.  Amateur writers will use them for various reasons–to make a nice rhyme or to maintain a rhythm, or because they think it “sounds” better.  It doesn’t.

And it’s hard to explain why.  Most simply, it’s because it’s just not the perfect word.

It’s not too difficult to say why the use of the term “desire” is better in “It is my desire to honor you” than it is in, “You are the love of my desire.”

But it is not so easy to explain why the word “ransom” is better in the line, “His wounds have paid my ransom” (“How deep the Father’s Love”), than it is in the line, “He is the ransom for my life” (“King of my Heat”)?

How do I know that one way of saying something is a lot better than another way of saying something?  I don’t know, I just know.  And it’s not just me.  Many other people also have this mysterious power.  And you can have it too.

Developing a “Poetic Ear”

If you want to use words powerfully and beautifully you need to develop a poetic ear.  Teaching literature for over 30 years has trained my ear.  I read a lot.  I read the work of amateur writers, and I read the best writers of poetry and prose in the English language.  Consequently, I know where a piece of writing is on the continuum.  It is no surprise, then, that I am sensitive to lyrics in our worship songs that more closely resemble my students’ writing than it does that of Robert Frost.

You too can develop this poetic ear.  Read and study great poetry.  My guess is that the poetry with which most praise and worship lyricists engage is that of other praise and worship lyricists.  Even the big songwriters are often writing with unremarkable diction.  Reading these won’t help to develop the poetic ear.  If you really want to develop a sensitivity for good diction, read the very best wordsmiths–Seamus Heaney, Robert Frost, the Brontes, Jane Austin, Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Percy Bysshe Shelly, John Keats, etc.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”If you want to write great praise and worship lyrics, don’t use other praise and worship songs as your model. Develop a poetic ear by reading the best poets and writers of prose and poetry #praiseandworship #lyrics” quote=”If you want to write great praise and worship lyrics, don’t use other praise and worship songs as your model. Develop a poetic ear by reading the best poets and writers of prose and poetry “]

It will take time, but if you start reading the best novelists and poets, in ten years’ time, you will be writing much better lyrics than you would if you didn’t.  “Ten years?!” you cry.  Well, if you are 36 now, I’m telling you that by the time you are 46 you will have moved a long way down the spectrum toward being a poet.  That gives you 30 years to write great songs.  That’s lots of time.

Lyricist or Poet?

Good writers never compromise diction for the sake of rhyme or rhythm, or anything else.  They strive to use the perfect word in every instance–they don’t settle.  The perfect word will have the precise denotation and connotation, and serve the rhythm and rhythm perfectly.  If they just can’t make it work, the poet will rework the line or the whole verse, or even the whole song. They don’t stop until it is perfect.

You can’t start here, however.  Before you know what the perfect word is, you need to have developed the poetic ear.  Even then, it will tie you into knots at times, but that’s the challenge of poetry–and I don’t think we have any choice.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”If we aspire to write songs in praise of our King, they need to be excellent.  We need to strive to be poets, not just lyricists.  #praiseandworship #worship” quote=”[tweetshare tweet=’If we aspire to write songs in praise of our King, they need to be excellent.  We need to strive to be poets, not just lyricists.  “]

What I am asking is not easy, but if we aspire to write songs in praise of our King, these songs need to be excellent.  Not for his sake, but for ours, and for those whom we lead in worship.  We need to strive to be poets, not just lyricists.

And becoming a poet takes at least as much time and effort as it takes to become a great musician, and how long did that take?

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

In my last post, I introduced my project to help songwriters and worship leaders to write and select more meaningful songs for corporate worship.

Words are the poet’s primary tool so let’s start with diction–the author’s choice of words.

Denotation and Connotation

Words can carry meaning beyond the definition(s) we find in the dictionary, the denotations.  Many words also have strong connotations–the associations, or imaginative meanings they carry.  Connotation can be a very effective tool for writing powerful lyrics, but they can mess up a song too.  When choosing words for your song, consider not just what the words mean, but also what they suggest.

Word Choice: A Literary Example

What can a sensitivity to diction do for my songwriting?

We will start by looking at a poem and discussing the effect of diction.  Then we will look at a popular worship song that does a pretty good job with diction.

 

“Desert Places” by Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it–it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less–
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

In this poem, the speaker is walking past a field on a winter evening.  But the speaker is lonely.  The words of the poem don’t simply explain the speaker’s loneliness–they allow us to imaginatively experience them.

In the first line, the words “falling” and “fast” are repeated.  Consider the effect of repeating these words in such close proximity–doesn’t it hint at a sense of alarm, even panic?  The rest of the first stanza partially allays this impression with a peaceful description of the snow-covered field.  But we can’t shake the disturbing effect of the first line, even in the peaceful context of a snowy evening.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”When selecting worship songs, look for where the words are used in unexpected or unusual ways–these can make think again about what we know and reconsider meanings. #praiseandworship #worshipleader” quote=”When selecting worship songs, look for where the words are used in unexpected or unusual ways–these can make think again about what we know and reconsider meanings. “]

After the first line of the second stanza, where the trees take possession of the field, we read, “All animals are smothered in their lairs.”  This line really shows the power of diction in the hands of a master.  Consider how different the effect would be if Frost had written, “All animals are cozy in their dens.”  Big difference.  The connotation of “smothered” is to murder someone by suffocating them with a pillow.  A “lair” where beast and monsters live.  Frost’s lines are disturbing, and this is the work of his choice of these particular words.

After this comes “The loneliness includes me unawares.”  This line, occupying the central position of the poem, carries the central idea.  The waves of loneliness come in four recurrences of the words lonely or loneliness. Then, another group of words reinforces the idea of absence:  “absent-spirited,” “blanker,” “no expression,” “empty,” “desert.”   It is clear, the speaker doesn’t just lack friends.  We are talking about existential loneliness.

The word “scare” is an intriguing word near the end of this poem.  It lacks the sophistication of the other words–it’s like he’s scoffing at the vastness of space, (“You can’t scare me!”) claiming his interior loneliness is far more profound.

This is not all we could say about this poem, but it’s enough to illustrate that the author’s choice of words can have a tremendous effect in bringing the reader into an imaginative experience, even while they sit in the wingback chair before the fire.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The best praise and worship songs will have words that excite our imaginations. #praiseandworship #worship” quote=”The best praise and worship songs will have words that excite our imaginations.”]

Word Choice: A Worship Song Example

When I went looking for a praise and worship song that provided a good example of diction, I went to the list of most popular songs from CCLI.  I found very little until I got to the twenty-second on the list.  And this contained lyrics from an old hymn. I did not expect to find anything close to the density of effective word choice that we find in Robert Frost’s poem above, but it is clear that selecting words for effect is not a priority for praise-and-worship songwriters.

Here are some lines from Stuart Townsend’s “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.”  This song provides us with some examples of how diction can be used in a worship song.

How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
. . .
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

In the first stanza, we find the word “wretch.”  The connotations of “wretch” are not simply that of a pathetic victim, but of a deliberately villainous rascal.  Words like ingrate, knave, liar, and lowlife, are synonyms.  But in an amazing reversal of expectation, this villain is considered the Father’s “treasure.”  Here the connotations are of heaps of gold and jewels.   Meaning pulses at the intersection of “wretch” and “treasure.”

The second stanza shows us Christ’s suffering from the rejection of his Father on our behalf.  The pain of loss is “searing.”  It’s not just pain that this word communicates, but a very specific kind of pain.  The connotations of this word suggest the deliberate burning of flesh associated with medieval torture.   In spite of being ungrateful lowlifes, he pays our “ransom,”–another word loaded with meaning.

The first several times we sing this song, the music or some of the lines will bring us into worship quite easily, but after we sing it five or six times, we begin to experience a deeper conviction through the power of these words.  The gratitude that results will likely increase with the repetition, as will the volume of the singing as these meanings enter the imagination.

My desire is that almost every song we sing in church gets more powerful every time we sing it, rather than less.  Diction is the first, but it is not the only step toward this end.

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice Of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

Occasionally, during corporate worship, my focus is taken away from the God who is deserving of all my praise and drawn to the words upon the screen.  Although I try to resist the distraction, it’s not easy.  Sometimes I am diverted by a bit of bad theology.  Yesterday, I chuckled because a line was just weird.  Other times, it’s because I notice the words don’t really mean anything or are cliche.  And then there’s the mediocre, or even bad, poetry.

It is clear from their enthusiasm that the worship leaders and many of the worshippers either don’t notice or don’t care.  They seem to be able to look past the lyrics, to the recipient of our praise.  I am not always able to.

Does the whole worship song thing need to change because of me?  No, I don’t think so.

Might the whole worship thing be improved in such a way that the experience of the participants is enhanced in a way that they never before imagined?  I think, yes.

The Test of Repetition

I too am able, for a time, to ignore unremarkable lyrics.  When we sing a new song in church, I don’t begin by scrutinizing every phrase, word, and rhyme to see if it is worthy of my voice.  Unless the words are truly silly or empty, I can be led into worship several times with almost any song.  It is only at that point when the repeated singing of a truly great song begins to open up deeper worship through its inspired lyrics, do I notice the inadequacies of those of an inferior one.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”It is at that point when the repeated singing of a great song opens up deeper worship through inspired lyrics, do I notice the inadequacies of those of an inferior one. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship” quote=”It is at that point when the repeated singing of a great song opens up deeper worship through inspired lyrics, do I notice the inadequacies of those of an inferior one.”]

After this happens, every recurrence of the so-so song impedes, rather than enhances worship.

Is it My Problem?

Some have told me that I have a problem, that I shouldn’t be so critical.  This may be true, but I believe I have three legitimate defenses against this accusation:

  1. Does not our creator deserve the best that we can offer up?  As we bring the sacrifice praise to the altar of the Lord, don’t we want it to be the best of the flock?  Should we not strive to present songs of praise that are excellent, not just musically but lyrically as well?
  2. God gives good gifts for the edification of the church and the world.  One of his gifts is the ability to create beautiful things–this includes poetry.  Some have only the gift of appreciation, but even so, I think we need to take this gift seriously so as to honour the Giver.
  3. My third argument is more complex, and it is contained in the series of posts that follow.  In essence, better lyrics lead to deeper worship, even if you don’t care about the lyrics.

It is certainly true that God probably doesn’t notice the difference between our best attempts and our blemished ones, for they are all offerings of a sincere, but fallen people.   God needs neither our sheep nor our songs.  When  God’s people are commanded to sacrifice the best lamb, grain or ox, it is for our sake.  It is a reflection and a reminder of how we are to think of him.

The Poetry of Worship

In an attempt to edify the church, I will write a series of posts to help would-be lyricists take some steps toward becoming poets.   These posts will also be useful for those who choose the songs we sing each Sunday, as they too will be equipped to better judge the poetic from the prosaic.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”As we bring the sacrifice praise to the altar don’t we want it to be the best of the flock?  Should we not strive to present songs of praise that are excellent, not just musically but lyrically as well? #praiseandworship #worship #worshipleader” quote=”As we bring the sacrifice praise to the altar don’t we want it to be the best of the flock?  Should we not strive to present songs of praise that are excellent, not just musically but lyrically as well?”]

My assumption is that most of those who write the songs we sing in corporate worship started as musicians.  Some of the more passionate and gifted move on to writing their own music.  It is natural that some of these would, then, try their hand at writing a song, lyrics and all.  What they may not realize is that developing the skills to write great lyrics takes at least as much time as it takes to master an instrument.  If Malcolm Gladwell is to be believed, the typical worship leader took at least 10,000 hours to develop their skill at playing the piano or guitar.  To write the lyrics of that song will require another 10,000 hours to develop the poet’s skill.

It is sadly obvious that many would-be praise-and-worship songwriters are uploading songs to YouTube before having made the time investment in the poetry of worship.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Developing the skills to write great lyrics takes at least as much time as it takes to master an instrument.  #praiseandworship #worship #worshipleader” quote=”Developing the skills to write great lyrics takes at least as much time as it takes to master an instrument. “]

This series of posts, called The Poetry of Worship, is designed to challenge would-be lyricists to consider some principles of poetry that will start them on a journey toward writing songs that will evoke, not just the emotions of worshipers, but their imaginations as well.  These posts and plus the 10,000 hours of practice might one day lead to a lyrically decent worship song.

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbol (8)

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

Concert versus Worship

 

Free-Photos / Pixabay

If the amount of time given to the singing of praise and worship songs, and the central position of the praise band on “the stage” is any indication, many North American churches are implicitly asserting that singing of praise songs as the main way we interact with God in our Sunday services.

This means we’d better get it right.

Worship Leader?

We have all heard people, including some worship leaders, speak as if the term “worship” was synonymous with “singing.”  Even the title “worship leader” suggests the reduction of worship to singing.  The appellation “Worship Leader” is appropriate if this person also leads the congregants in the many other aspects of worship.  For instance:

  • prayer
  • scripture reading
  • the offering
  • the reading of the law
  • confession and assurance of forgiveness
  • the recitation of the Apostle’s Creed
  • funeral announcements
  • pleas for volunteers for the Sunday School
  • and anything else besides singing that also constitutes worship

If the worship leader only leads signing, then they should be referred to as song leaders.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”If the worship leader only leads signing, then they should be referred to as song leaders. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship” quote=”If the worship leader only leads signing, then they should be referred to as song leaders.”]

But isn’t this just semantics?  Although it may seem like I am being petty, this is some serious stuff.

Little things will turn and shape our thinking.  Things like:

  • using the terms singing and worship interchangeably,
  • and calling song leaders, worship leaders,
  • and removing all sign of the sacraments from the stage,
  • and calling that area “the stage”
  • and calling that area “the auditorium,”

These are hugely important because we do them habitually.  If we habitually use the term “stage,” for instance, we will come to understand what happens on it to be a performance.

James K. A. Smith Changed How I Think About Everything

According to James K. A. Smith, human beings are liturgical animals.  He argues that our lives are not given direction by what we think, or even what we believe, but by what we love.  According to Smith,

what constitutes our ultimate identities—what makes us who we are, the kind of people we are—is what we love. More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love, or what our love as ultimate—what, at the end of the day, gives us a sense of meaning, purpose, understanding and orientation

(26–27 Desiring the Kingdom).

Smith then argues that our loves are shaped and directed by “liturgies”–habitual practices.

Traditionally the church used to orient our identities toward God and the community of faith through all sorts of liturgies: the physical spaces of worship, the sacraments, the church calendar, genuflecting, kneeling, standing, offering  “Peace.”  Fish on Friday, the rosary, daily prayers, and many other regular and repeated practices linked the spiritual realm with daily life.

Secular Liturgies

In modern Christianity, we’ve abandoned almost all of these habits and rituals–liturgies.  But, we’ve not abandoned liturgies.  Being liturgical animals, we’ve simply adopted new ones.  We’ve replaced the old ones with new ones.  And the new ones are largely modern and secular: Starbucks and McDonalds, Saturday hockey and Sunday football, Homecoming and Holloween, Twitter and Snapchat, YouTube and Netflix, craft beer and green-coloured smoothies, inclusion and saying “I feel,” when we mean “I think.”   These are not just things we do, they shape who we are because they are regular, habitual–they are liturgies.

We have replaced sacred liturgies with secular liturgies.  This ain’t good if you believe that a spiritual reality is meaningfully interacting with the material one.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Why do people have such a hard time with faith in our culture?  Because our rituals direct our passions and desires to other things–other ultimate loves. ” quote=”Why do people have such a hard time with faith in our culture?  Because our rituals direct our passions and desires to other things–other ultimate loves. “]

Are we training people to leave the church?

There is some (a lot of?) anxiety in the North American Church about people, especially young people, vacating the pews.   To retain their members, and attract new ones, many churches have attempted to become more culturally “relevant,” but this has exacerbated the problem.  Being culturally relevant usually means importing secular liturgies into the church.  The Starbucks’ Coffee culture, showing movies on Youth Nights, dress-up parties on Reformation Day and the singing to the instrumentation and stylings of popular music are examples. The problem is that secular culture does these liturgies better than the church does, so the church is actually training people to eventually prefer Starbucks and pop concerts to Church.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The church is actually training people to eventually prefer Starbucks and pop concerts to Church.” quote=”The church is actually training people to eventually prefer Starbucks and pop concerts to Church.”]

The Function of Difference

According to the Westminster Confession, one of the functions of the sacraments is as a “visible difference between those that belong unto the church and the rest of the world.” The authors of the Confession understood the importance of having a different experience at church than in the world.

Our rituals used to be different than those of the world, but in some churches, even our sacraments are being secularized.  For the health, and perhaps survival, of the North American church, we need to be different, not the same.

Here are some questions that might be a part of a discussion around how to make the singing part of worship, unlike the secular liturgy of the popular music concert:

  • How can we increase the involvement of the congregation in the singing part of worship?
  • Is there a way to teach the worshipers how to harmonize?
  • Should we sing more hymns?
  • Should we sing different hymns (than just the 5 we do now)?
  • Should we sing hymns in their original forms, same harmonies, and no modern (and inferior) additions?
  • Are volumes and mixes supporting congregational singing, or drowning it out?
  • Can we use different instrumentation than a typical rock and roll band?
  • Can we develop different song structures besides the verse-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus-chorus pattern?
  • Could we create a new genre of Christian music for corporate worship?
  • Is it necessary for the worship band to be front and centre?
  • How can we utilize lighting to take the focus off of the musicians?
  • Can we resurrect some traditional liturgical forms or elements of worship?
  • Can we invent new liturgical forms that are different than secular liturgies?
  • How can we emphasize God’s action in worship and the sacraments?
  • Can we move toward thinking about the sacraments as more than ceremonies of remembrance?
  • Can we mention, or even link our sermons to, the church calendar?

This list includes just some of the ways that we could bring more sacred liturgies into the Sunday service.  Do you have any ideas you could add to this list?

In my series The Poetry of Worship, offer ways we can improve the lyrics of the praise and worship songs we sing.  More importantly, I explain why we ought to.

“Just a Symbol”?

Engin_Akyurt / Pixabay

Is today (January 28, 2016) closer to

A) January 27, 2016

or

B) January 28, 1986?

The obvious answer is A), because we almost always think of time as sequential, but for the friends and family of the five astronauts and two payload specialists that died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on this date in 1986, the answer would likely be B).   Lamb

In 1986, I watched the launch of the Challenger with my grade eight and nine students.  We watched for a few hours after as we tried to understand how this could have happened.  This was a meaningful event.  Chronologically, yesterday is closer to today, but if meaning is our standard, at least for some people, today is closer to this date 30 years ago than was yesterday.

The Non-sequential Nature of Time

The non-sequential nature of time is something we usually ignore, but it can add significant depth and experience to our lives if we are more aware of it.  I’ll attempt to illustrate this using the elements of Tim Keller’s sermon called “The Story of the Lamb.”

The story of the Lamb is actually the story of three lambs.

The Story of the Second Lamb

The story of the second lamb cam be found in the book of Exodus.  The Israelites are slaves in Egypt and as prologue to releasing his people, God has sent nine plagues upon the land of Egypt.  The tenth plague will be the death of the first born.  In  Exodus 12:23 we an amazing twist in time:

When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the door frame and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

The Destroyer.  This destroyer does not bring regular destruction, but End-Times destruction–Revelation 9:11:

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

Lamb1This Destroyer, then, who visits death upon all the first born of Egypt is the bringer of End-of Time Judgement, long before the end of time.  Time is bent when the Destroyer of the future kills all the first born in ancient Egypt who were unprotected by the blood of the second lamb.

Importantly, the tenth plague is not just the death of the first born Egyptians, but the first born of any who live in Egypt–this includes the Hebrews.  The Hebrews are not exempt from Eternal Destruction–they are not saved by their own merit, nor by God’s ignoring of their sin.  They are saved by the blood of the lamb.  The Passover is the central act of Jewish worship – and it commemorates salvation by “the bloody death of a helpless victim”–the second lamb.

The Story of the First Lamb

The first lamb is found in Genesis 22.  God says to Abraham,

Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. (22:2)

In this culture, the first born already belonged to God; he has a claim on the first born as representative of the family(Exodus 22, Numbers 3 and 8)–the firstborn’s life is forfeit.

You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day. (Exodus 22:29-30)

The first born, as the representative of the family, bore the guilt of the entire family.  Abraham, Keller says, believed that God was just calling in the debt.  Although the father would have been distressed by the loss of his son, sacrificing Isaac was also an act of giving God his due.  Just before Abraham can carry out the sacrifice, angel of the Lord calls out “Stop.”  Then this:

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.  (Genesis 22:13)

God himself provided the alternate sacrifice.  The ram functions as a substitute for the first born who is himself a representative of Abraham’s family.

Back to the Second Lamb

Lamb2Back to the second lamb. In the Exodus story, the Hebrews understood that God  was, again, making a claims the on the debt of the first born, and that he, again, provided an alternate.  When they heard God’s instructions for the first Passover, they would likely make the connection to the first lamb–the ram caught in the thicket which took the place of Isaac on the alter.  The story of the second lamb doesn’t mean what it means without the story of the first lamb.  Again, time is bent back upon itself.

The deliverance from Egypt wasn’t the solution to all their problems–they still lived in a spiritual bondage, and consequently were subject to Final Judgement. To solve this problem, they need another lamb–Lamb 3, Jesus.  John the Baptist called him “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

The Story of the Third Lamb

Lamb4The night Jesus was arrested, he ate the Passover meal with his disciples.  This night, the lamb wasn’t on the table, but at the table.  The first two lambs were just animals.  The ram that took Isaac’s place on the alter did not actually save the boy.  Nor did the Passover lambs save the Hebrews by their death.  The first two lambs only pointed to the third.  The third lamb was the God’s Son, but this time no one yelled, “Stop.” Like the first two lambs, his death was in the stead of those who deserved it.  Unlike the first two lambs, Jesus is the ultimate lamb that provides the ultimate salvation.

Communion

The central act of Christian worship, Communion, commemorates “the bloody death of an innocent victim.”  The bread and the wine in which Christians partake an obedient response to Jesus command to “do this in remembrance of me.”  In it we remember Jesus, the Lamb of God, giving his life for us, once and for all, on the cross.

Christians have different views as to what happens at communion, from the supernatural event of transubstantiation to it being a completely human act or “just a symbol.”  If we think of time only as sequence, the Passover and the Last Supper happened many, many centuries ago. If they are relevant at all, they are relevant only as a symbol. If you understand that time has loops, it becomes far more than a mere symbol.

Lamb5When we partake of the bread and wine, we are not simply remembering an event that took place 2000 years ago.  We are standing at the convergence of several events, profound events each involving a substitutionary death.

Jesus died once for all, but as time bends, we stand before him as he says the words “this is my body, for you.”  Communion is not merely a memorial because Jesus is active as he offers us the bread and wine–his body, not many times, but once.  But with the bending of time, he’s offering it now.  One death and resurrection, but a continual offering of Grace.

As you partake of the Communion meal this weekend,  think about the nearness in time, higher time, of the ram that took Isaac’s place on the alter, the Passover lambs that died in order to protect the Hebrews from an early encounter with The Destroyer of The End-Times.  Think especially about the Lamb of God–the ultimate lamb–who died to save us from the ultimate consequences of our sin and who is right now seated on the throne of heaven.  Think about standing at the convergence of all the Communion meals being celebrated across space and time as Jesus offers us the salvation he paid for with his life.

If you manage to catch just a glimpse of any of this, you will not be able to think of The Lord’s Supper as “just a symbol.”

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